Hawaii: Day Three

Hawaii: Day Two

Hawaii: Day One

Sharon has an announcement!

Working out back

Spring has Sprung

A Quilt for Sharon

What my name means

A friend of mine recently did this on her blog & I thought it would be fun to take a look at what my name means literally & what it means to me personally.

Caitlin Wylie Wilhelm

I was born in the mid-80's, which naturally means that my parents got my name from an 80's TV show. Up until today I didn't know what show it was, just that the character named Caitlin was a female helicopter pilot. But, Google is a wonderful thing, as I was able to simply type in "Caitlin from 80's television show about a female helicopter pilot" and up popped the information for which I was looking. It turns out that the show was Airwolf and the character was Caitlin O'Shannessy played by Jean Bruce Scott. Fabulous!

Having the name Caitlin growing up meant that I was unique, since I never met another Caitlin until college. I also have the claim of having the original Caitlin, not a variation of the original as all those other spellings are. As it is a variation of Katherine, the meaning has remained the same & is generally believed to mean "pure."

Now, I can honestly say that I am definitely not a perfectly pure person. I make an effort to live righteously & try each day to be a little better. Hopefully someday I can truly represent the meaning of my name.

When my parents named me, they carried on the tradition in my mom's family of not giving the girls middle names. That way, when I got married, I could take my maiden name as my middle name, which I did. Hence the middle name of Wylie. All of my married sisters also have the middle name Wylie, which I think will make it a little easier for our posterity to do their family history. My mom has also taken her maiden name as her middle name. Not having a middle name growing up made those get to know you games where you had to find someone with the same color eyes, same number of siblings & the same middle name a little hard. It wasn't until high school that I found another girl without a middle name. My husband & I decided to carry on the tradition as well, & gave our daughter only a first & last name.

The name Wylie carries all kinds of meanings for me, including the rich heritage from which it came, the fact that my Dad chose it as his last name & how much it means to him, & that I always had to stand up for it when people would mispronounce & misspell it (pronounced Why-lee, as in the coyote).

Now, on to my last name. I've only had the name Wilhelm for about 5 1/2 years now, but it is firmly a part of me & I definitely feel a part of it. Or rather, them. I have been welcomed into the Wilhelm clan with open arms & consider them to be my family, too. I love to learn about the history of my husband's family & I'm grateful to be a part of that history.

I've come to love & accept the family motto of "Where there's a Wilhelm, there's a way" because that definitely describes & defines the way that my husband & I view life & how we can shape & influence it for good.

I always promised myself that I would marry someone with a last name at the beginning of the alphabet, so that my kids wouldn't have to suffer being last in the lunch line, the last one on the role, being stuck in the back of class pictures, etc, but obviously that didn't happen. My kids will still be at or near the end, & I'm sure they'll turn out all right. I'm sure my daughter will think that she'll definitely marry someone up near the A's & B's, & maybe she will, but eventually she'll discover that it doesn't matter at all where you land in the alphabetical order.

So, there you go. I am Caitlin Wylie Wilhelm & proud of it.

What does your name mean? But more importantly, what does your name mean to you?

A new page

Newest photos of Sharon

Girly baseball t-shirt

I was cruising through my Google Reader this morning & found a tutorial to make a child's baseball t-shirt out of old t-shirts at one of my favorite crafty sites Make It & Love It. I thought it was super cute & looked really easy, so this afternoon I decided to give it a go & made one for Sharon. Actually I made two, but the first one had a really small neck hole & it wouldn't fit over her head. I figured out my mistake & the second one came out perfectly. I just used a t-shirt that fits her as the pattern for figuring out the length & width. As a note: be sure to cut your pattern pieces based on the neckline that's below the ribbing, otherwise your neck hole will be too small. It may look too large, but you add the ribbing later, which makes up for the difference. So, here's a picture of Sharon wearing it. Sorry, it's not the best quality because I forgot to switch the ISO on the camera, & she was walking toward me (I know, how can such a tiny thing be walking! She is 17 months old after all).

I've had a pink t-shirt in my fabric stash for awhile, & decided it would be perfect for this project!

The goings on

I've been up to quite a few things lately, & wanted to write some of them down so I wouldn't forget. On Tuesday we had our (women's church group) Relief Society activity at the Family History Center here in town. Those who weren't signed up on the New Family Search were helped to do so, & the rest of us learned how & became inspired to do our own family history work. Yesterday I spent a good amount of time entering our family information into a pedigree program in the hopes that I will be able to discover forgotten ancestors in the future.

I've also been working on my grandmother's quilt, which she asked me to quilt by hand. I sewed all the squares together a couple of weeks ago, & finally pulled out my quilting hoop & got started. The pattern is fairly simple, it just takes awhile to finish each square. I've included a picture of a square in progress in the hoop, & one of my first completed square. I love how it turned out! The quilt is called the Rose of Sharon & my grandma has had the squares since the 1930's & 40's. Hopefully I can finish it soon!

Sharon has been going through a growth spurt (I think). She seems to have gotten quite long all of a sudden & we were finally able to pull out the 6-9 month clothes (many of which are already too small, since she is just so long). One of her top teeth pushed through last week & the other top one is also working it's way out. They aren't the middle teeth, though, so she's going to be a little vampire soon.

We cut up & canned our half of a cow last weekend. It went pretty quickly since we had so much help. The long part was just waiting for the canners to heat up & cook. As a result of the cow, Jack has been enjoying some nice leg bones. The results of Jack enjoying leg bones, however, is not as enjoyable for the rest of us. He has been so gassy that it nearly knocks you over! There's just nothing quite like a dog fart.

Other than all of that, Sharon decided to explore the diaper pail last night & discovered the poo squishes really well. Needless to say, I did not take any pictures & immediately gave her a bath. Yuck!

Sharon is walking!

I've been making stuff

Sharon's room has been sadly blank for awhile. Actually, it kind of had boxes of clothes, laundry baskets & items without a home scattered throughout it. Last week I finally got it organized & clean so that she can actually play in there without getting into anything she shouldn't. This week I decided I should probably do something to decorate it. Things like decorating the "nursery" tend to get left in the dust when you have a baby 3 months earlier than expected. Go figure.
So, I've been making stuff. Here's a peek at what I've been doing:

{1} For some cheap & easy "art" above her crib I bought art canvas & just covered them with some fun fabric. I just stretched the fabric around & used a staple gun to attach it. Super easy, & fairly lightweight for hanging above her bed.

{2} I've been wanting to display Sharon's first footprints in a frame for awhile, & I finally did it this morning. I scanned in the prints from the card that they did at the hospital, made sure they were the same size as the actual ones, & printed them out on some white cardstock. Then I just cut scrapbook paper to fit my frame & put it all together. Just so you get an idea of how small those feet are, the prints measure 1 7/8 inches from the heel to the longest toe.

{3} & {4} I made some quick & easy bunting to hang in Sharon's room. I used coordinating scrapbook paper & pages from an old dictionary that I picked up at the thrift store for 50 cents. I used white seam binding and my sewing machine to assemble them. I also made two other strands of bunting using pink papers to decorate for Valentine's Day. They are hanging in the dining & living room.

So, that's a little bit of what I've been up to lately. They are all super easy crafts that can be done in under an hour for sure!

Digital Family Tree

Awhile ago I created a paper family tree with some brown cardstock & a maple leaf punch. I added the names of my family & their birthdates & it now resides in my entryway. I love it! I love keeping every day reminders of my family in my home.

Well, I've now surpassed even my own genius (though how that works I'm not quite sure). This morning I got the amazing idea that I should digitalize my family tree pattern. I scanned in my leafless tree shape & then created a new family tree in Photoshop Elements using my digital scrapbook papers & computer fonts. I made this one to hang in Sharon's room so that she can have some pretty, but sentimental art, too. I'm going to make these trees available for purchase in my Etsy store early next week, so check back then! I just love these colors!

I now have custom digital family trees available for sale in my Etsy shop! Check it out {here}!

Random Pages

Christmas Scrapbook Pages

Family Pictures Pages

I know I already posted most of these pictures, but I just did the scrapbook pages & wanted to post them as well. Just so you know, if you live in Kingman & want to have your family pictures taken, I would love to do them! My rates are really great, since I'm just starting out! So, if you want your family pictures taken, or individuals of your kids, feel free to leave a comment with some contact info, or email me.

Bread in 5 minutes a day

Wendy Dewitt posted a link to a video about how to make Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day and I checked it out. I wanted to share the links with you because I am definitely in love with this bread! The link she gave was just to the video that shows the basics of how to mix the bread, but I wanted the actual recipe, so I did a little looking & was able to find it on the blog for the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. So, here is the link to the recipe. Now, let me tell you about my experience making the bread. I found a rectangle container that is large enough to hold the dough as it rises, and then I mixed up my first batch of dough. I left in on the counter for a little over two hours, & I can assure you that my yeast was definitely working. I pulled off a chunk so I could make a loaf right then and I put the rest in the fridge. The first few times I made it, I let it rise on some cornmeal on a cookie sheet. After the first couple loaves, I decided to buy some parchment paper (not sure where the stuff I had went) because I was having some trouble getting the loaf off the cookie sheet without squishing it. With the parchment paper I won't have to do that, I can just put the whole thing on the baking stone.

So, what's the bread like? So good. It has a nice crust on the outside, but the inside is so moist & fluffy (it's so fluffy I'm gonna die!). Sorry, I couldn't pass up that chance for a movie quote. But the best part about the bread is that while it is so tasty, there is practically no effort involved. You don't have to knead it, & the rising time doesn't have to be exact at all. I will say that I will probably make my regular bread recipe sometimes, too, because I do like to knead on occasion. It gets the stress out. But, I'm going to keep a batch of this bread dough mixed up in the fridge from now on, because I can just decide to bake bread when I get a craving for it, and have it just about an hour later! I am definitely going to be getting the book so I can see what other recipes they have using this basic dough.

So check it out! And if you do end up buying the book, it would be great if you could get it through the link here in this post, because then I get a little bit for advertising! =) Thanks!

From behind the lens